"All right," he said, pushing himself erect and moving toward a work station.
Glory came up beside me and took hold of my hand.
"Sssss," she said.
"Sss-ss," I replied.
"Dammy does not look well."
"I used up several bodies myself," I said. "Listen, Adam kidnapped what was left of the human race, not to mention all the other races who'd decided to try Haven. Why'd he steal the box, Glory? Another misunderstanding?"
"No," she said. "It was their source of power he wanted—that singularity which we knew would be the last one to blow before the Big Crunch occurs."
"I don't understand."
"The effects have all been calculated for ages. He has been filling the cornucopia. And if he takes everything forward and leaves things just as he found them, a second after he removed them, the equations will remain undisturbed."
"But the boxful of downloaded people, the Haveners— all of them banking on living a subjective infinity of time-spurts, there on the brink of chaos—why did he take them, too?"
"To maintain their calculated dose of Hawking radiation and keep the equations pure. They're down in the Hellhole, standing in the same relationship to the singularity as they were when he collected them. It's a simple two-body problem."
"So he really means to return them?"
"Of course! He only borrowed them. He is too neat to interfere with the orderly destruction of the universe."
"He 'borrowed' them for the better part of three millennia?"
"Or for one second, depending on how you look at these things."
"I'm missing something. I'm still missing something," I said. "Like, why did he want to borrow the Haveners' singularity, open this place, and run it through the development of Western civilization up until now?"
"Oh, he deals with Easterners, too. You must remember—"
"All right! Conceded! Why? Why?"
"He has accumulated models of all forms of behavior, as well as considerable other information."
"So?"
"He wants the singularity ridden through explosion to Strominger's remnanthood. If a black hole explodes, any information it has taken in is lost to its universe, but Strominger says that the information is preserved in the black hole's horn-shaped remnant in compressed form. Adam plans to return the singularity to the point where he found it, send it forward toward the Crunch till the heavy Hawking radiation from the last black hole produces the explosion, then see it depart the universe before the collapse."
"It could never return."
"Not to this universe, but it could be directed to its successor. Theory permits its information to be available in that universe—which would become parallel to this—and the information would provide for the development of the anthropic principle."
"Granting he could smuggle information past the Crunch and the Bang, he couldn't do it, Glory. Anything material would be destroyed."
"Of course. That is why he was waiting for someone to come along with the design for an infinitely adaptable creature that is both more and less than matter, why he threw himself so wholeheartedly into the collection of the 666 ingredients."
"The Dominoid!"
"Yes, he wants it for the demiurge of our next neighbor universe, driving his cornucopion full of goodies into its earliest history."
"Preposterous. Nothing comes out of a singularity in any condition to discuss information theory."
"He finesses the Crunch and the Bang singularities. Never enters them, never departs. The real trick is for it all to achieve the Strominger Effect and preserve the information. Ultimately, the Dominoid will have to absorb everything here into itself. It is actually to become the cornucopion. And there is evidence it has been done before. In fact, the act may pretty much be necessary for a universe where the anthropic principle obtains."
The entire while we were talking, the healing unit hummed as Adam's manipulated jawbone remineralized. Another extensor from the unit had reshaped its terminus to flow across his ribs.
"Well, the Buoco Nero closes today," I said. "You know what that means."
"Yes," she replied.
We both turned toward the doorway and moments later it opened. Prandy entered, surveyed the scene, and announced, "Count Cagliostro is here to make a delivery. He asks permission to enter the Hellhole with it."
I looked immediately to Adam, but he was in no condition to speak, to nod, or to shake his head. He gestured for us to approach, and when we did he growled, "Send him in."
"Adam," I said, "if you had the android body could you do the assembly without Cagliostro's help?"
He seemed to reflect, began several answers which proved too complicated, made a twisted face, then repeated, "Send him in."
Glory nodded, turned toward Prandy, and repeated the words.
Prandy held the door wide, and Cagliostro—in his big, red, Mephistophelean mode—entered the Hellhole, grinning nastily, a body bag slung over his shoulder. "Well, well, well," he observed, "this looks like the last chapter of a histoire etrange here—or the first."
Advancing, he deposited the bag at Adam's feet. "Here's the host, M'sieur. Are you ready to proceed?" he asked.
"Will be. Soon," Adam managed.
Prandy moved to Adam's side, took his hand. "What happened?" she inquired.
"Later," Adam said.
I moved forward and stood beside Cagliostro. "Unpack it, and I can help get things ready while we're waiting," I said.
"Good idea," he replied, leaning forward and unfastening the bag, working it downward on the android. It was possessed only of feature buds, was hairless, sexless, and very cool to touch, its skin translucent to the point where it seemed almost to glow. Faint outlines of internal structures were visible within it.
"Let's move it down to the adding field and I'll set it up," I said. "I could also bring up some of the ingredients, but I've a feeling there's a special order to their installation."
"That's right."
We both took hold of the body and I led the way. It was surprisingly light. I laid it down in the field in an easy-access position. A small stream of blood seemed to be flowing down the center of the tunnel toward the rear.
Adam removed himself from the healing unit and came over. There was a certain puffiness to his face, indicating that he should have waited longer. "Let's be quick about it," he said.
"Oui," Cagliostro replied, rubbing his hands together. When he drew them apart they held a parchment scroll between them which he unwound for several inches. "We begin with the peripherals," he stated.
"All right," Adam said. "I'll assist. Read ahead on the list and the others can fetch ingredients and have them ready for us as we need them."
Deep-voiced, Cagliostro began to read—or rather intone—the first part of his catalog. Glory, Prandy, and I began to scavenge, bringing back the factors that would produce the Beast. Some were ready and easy to locate; others, Adam had not had opportunity to assemble in one place.
Nothing occurred at first as Adam and Cagliostro went about their business using the adding field to install qualities in the Dominoid. Several dozen were actually added to its makeup before its color grew brighter and its fingers twitched. As the process advanced, the feature buds took on firmer resolution. Suddenly there were eyes, albeit closed. The small, central facial bump had grown into a large, somewhat flattish nose. The mouth was no longer a thin crease below it.
We continued. After a time the chest heaved and the hands clenched and unclenched. Cagliostro's voice called for more ingredients and we scrambled to furnish them.
"I'm not sure I like this thing," Prandy said.
Flames climbed the nearer wall and faded, to be succeeded by wheeling galaxies. The Dominoid seemed to have gained additional length and brightness. Its eyelids fluttered for a moment but did not open.